Intro | Artists | Survey + Sally Hart Retecki Consulting
Art In Healing Spaces
Enriching health care settings with original art
“Three Kayakers“
George Johanson
We believe there is an urgent need for high quality original fine art in health care settings. A good painting is a communication, a message, a connection with the viewer and a window into what is alive and present. It lifts the spirit and feeds the soul.
With good art in the waiting room, the healing process begins immediately, before the patient even sees the doctor.
Art In Healing Spaces is a program to place original artwork in health care settings.
Developed by Sally Retecki Consulting, the program is in the initial phase of selecting a portfolio of high quality fine art. We'd like your help. Let us know what kind of art would work well in your clinic. We will summarize your answers and post them on this site.
Click here to take Survey [ at surveymonkey.com ]
With your input, our Board of Curators will select artists to submit work for placement in health care settings. We can also arrange for commissioned work. If the artist is currently represented by a gallery, we will work closely with the gallery to acquire the piece. Take a look at our initial selections and let us know if you’d like to see our full collection once it is up and running.
Why original art?
What are the benefits?
What kind of art do patients and caregivers really need?
“Norbert’s Blossoms“
Mark Andres
Too many clinics have bare walls or the kind of bland images that are designed sooth the majority but which nourish no one. Since so much of the patient experience is spent waiting – in waiting rooms, exam rooms, procedure areas -- it is essential to fill that waiting with beauty that heals and inspires.
George Johanson, a prominent Northwest artist, comments:
“Reproductions of good art (Van Gogh) can make just as good wall decoration. But both patients and staff recognize (even subliminally) the difference, and do respond with the feeling that they are special enough to deserve original art.”
Art In Healing Spaces is dedicated to finding truly great original art that nourishes both patient and healer. What is beautiful touches the unknown and awakens the heart—beauty is the promise of happiness.
Health care clinics have found that high quality fine art helps:
- reduce patient stress
- create a sense of security for patients
- promote a bond between patient and care giver by enhancing empathy and a sense of connectedness
- perpetuate an image of excellence for the facility
Original art on the walls is a source of pride and sense of value for clinicians and patients. It can embody the core values of the health care practice, such as cultural diversity, collaboration, quality, integrity, compassion. Carefully selected fine art can foster an environment of creative excellence, encourage dialogue and challenge viewers to experience diverse points of view.
What kind of art do patients and caregivers really need?
“Book of Cow“
Leigh Hyams
We are in the process of selecting work from artists whose visual language ranges from the most whimsical to the monumental, from abstract to narrative, from academic to outsider/folk art, across all media.
Our guiding principle is this: fine art is beautiful. It carries a greeting from another world.
Though accessible and appealing to many, it may also, on occasion, confront. But such work can refer the viewer back to that which is deeper and unknown. It can also incite viewers forward to bring new things of beauty into the world for themselves. The pleasure of taking in such work is inexhaustible.
Visual taste is as varied as each person’s ever-changing vision of happiness – perhaps sublime, perhaps playful, passionate, aggressive or serene. Great art is found in all these voices. All become more deeply felt in the intensity of the care delivery setting.
Our goal is to provide a wide variety of high quality fine art for health care settings:
Art that is truly beautiful and deeply engaging.
Art that nourishes patients, families, and the healers themselves.
Let us know what you’d like to see in your clinic.
Click here to take Survey [ at surveymonkey.com ]
Contact
Sally Hart Retecki
Retecki@yahoo.com